The music of the regional rock band Sweat Lodge represents the logical progression of alternative music, and its new album, Chumpchange, released earlier this month, shows what grunge could have been if it had never been pumped out for mass consumption by the music industry.
Sweat Lodge will perform its last Iowa City show on Saturday night at 9, Gabe's, 330 E. Washington.
The band formed five years ago in Waverly, Iowa. Originally Wartburg College students, members of the band performed raucous shows for a small but devoted following of "Sweat-heads." Audiences at these early shows experienced a collective enrapture by moshing to the band's over-the-top performances, said Andrew Genous (get it?, androgynous), the band's lead singer.
Since then, the band has experienced minor lineup changes, but the Sweat Lodge experience has only gotten wilder, Genous said.
Chumpchange will give the progressive rock aficionado chills -- evoking comparisons to bands such as Alice in Chains, Jane's Addiction, and "Gish"-era Smashing Pumpkins. Unlike the mellow, radio-friendly sounds of today, the album features the alternative rock reminiscent of the days when these bands sought to create the most flagrantly in-your-face rock without caring about big hair or earth-tone, horizontally striped shirts.
"The new album is a radical departure from where we have been heading since Sweat Lodge formed," Genous said.
On the album, the band further refines psychedelic effects and heavy guitar riffs. Genous electronically tampers with his vocals similar to Perry Farrell, but the frequency and extent of distortion flirts industrial. Similarly, Dave Welander's and Mike Jensen's guitar work could be titled "57 Ways to Distort Guitar Chords."
Sweat Lodge songs go places, with expert use of dynamics and tempo change. For example, the opening track "Why? He Cries." begins innocuously, then descends into a plodding riff, before finally pulling out, all guns forward and howling, "the middle of the night!/why, why, why, why!"
The album's only vices are that sometimes the guitar is subtlety buried in overindulgent distortion. Also, Sweat Lodge won't aimlessly noodle or lighten up. If Phish or Bush is your prototype, don't bother.
Unfortunately, after tomorrow night, Chumpchange will be the only remaining evidence that the Sweat Lodge phenomenon existed. Due to inevitable circumstances (graduation, emigration, jail, etc.), the group is disbanding. But the final show will be memorable with the band bowing out with a tour-de-force performance, Genous said.
The Daily Iowan
May 16, 1997
page 2A
